FHF Blog

Reflecting on 2016

Tis the season for giving thanks, for pulling our loved ones close to us and letting them know how much we appreciate and love them, for being charitable and spreading joy and good favor to those less fortunate and in need. For a lot of you out there (if you're anything like me) this is a time for reflection; this is a time to look back at the prior year and often during this time, I think about some of the families and situations that we were privileged to work with. Now in business, just like with our families, things don't always go the way we planned and every year there's a handful of circumstances and situations that create complex issues that we as a team try to collaboratively solve. Here are few situations that we encountered in 2016.

Disclaimer: We take our clients right to privacy extraordinarily seriously so these stories have been altered to protect the identity of our clients and serve only as an example of the said situation.

Our Hopeless Romantic

Everybody deserves to find that special somebody, but in this case, the unfortunate case of our newly established doctor, his special somebody decided to rack up an exorbitant amount of credit card debt that he was completely unaware of. Not only was he unaware that the debt existed and was in his name, he was also unaware that the payments had ceased to be made just as their relationship had come to an end. The good doctor came to us as a referral from a long time referral partner. He had an accepted purchase agreement in hand, proof of his earnest money deposit and a closing date that was 30 days out and counting. Upon pulling the good doctors credit we discovered that he had approximately $30,000 of credit card debt he was unaware of and credit scores in the low 500s which was a complete and utter surprise as he had never in his life missed a payment on anything. Due to a major collaborative effort between our credit reporting company and a "what if" scenario program that they offer, we were able to tell the good doctor exactly what accounts to bring current, pay down and pay off in order for his scores to increase enough for him to qualify for the loan he was applying for and all this was done inside of the 30 day window that we had to work with. The good Dr. is celebrating the holidays in the warmth and comfort of his own home and has since subscribed to a credit monitoring service and now gets an alert anytime a new account has applied for in his name :)

Welcome to (insert the name of any bank or credit union) how can I take your order?

This scenario starts with a client that found us online through social media. This particular client had very high scores, a great job and excellent income. In my first conversation with the client she shared her story with me. She let me know that she had went to three separate lending institutions trying to get qualified for a mortgage to purchase a home and had been turned down by each of them. She went on to tell me how her family had outgrown their existing home and was busting at the seams and that they were trying to purchase a larger home from a family member but due to the financing delays the family member was getting very impatient and the deal was on the verge of falling apart. Her existing home was already sold and under contract and if she wasn't able to figure out the financing on the purchase of her next home she would have to cancel the contract and start back at square one. After listening to her story I discovered what the issue was. She had told the same thing to each one of the banks that she had applied at "I want to purchase a home and use the proceeds from the sale of my existing home as my down payment." In the course of "taking her order" The banks all denied her because her debt to income ratios were too high. After explaining to her the advantage of paying off her higher interest-rate credit card and installment debt, lowering her down payment on the new mortgage however reducing the term on the new loan from a 30 year to a 20 year she was able to qualify for a lower interest-rate, increase her monthly cash flow and was able to close on a home that would fit her growing family!

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GuestFriday, 22 February 2019

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